An Australian man has been charged with helping Islamic State develop missiles, police said.
Haisem Zahab, a 42-year-old electrician, was picked up during a raid at his home in the town of Young, in rural New South Wales.
He is accused of researching and designing systems to assist the extremist group's efforts to develop their own long-range guided missiles, Police Commissioner Andrew Colvin told reporters in Canberra.
Zahab is also accused of researching and designing a laser warning device that could alert IS, also known as ISIL, to incoming guided weapons used by coalition forces in Syria and Iraq.
Mr Colvin said: "We believe he has networks and contacts in ISIL - not necessarily just in the conflict zones, but in other parts of the world as well and he has been relying on them to pass this information."
He called Zahab's research "fairly sophisticated".
The raid, at the end of an 18-month investigation, involved dozens of police, including a dog squad and officers with metal detectors. The property is about 270km (170 miles) southwest of Sydney.
Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull said: "This highlights that terrorism, support for terrorist groups, and Islamist extremism is not limited to our major cities."
The suspect, who appeared in court briefly on Tuesday, faces charges of supporting extremist groups overseas, which are punishable by life imprisonment.
He was refused bail and will reappear on 8 March.
Since Australia's terrorist threat level was elevated in September 2014, the government says there have been 12 extremist plots foiled by police.
Tuesday, February 28, 2017
Four dead as plane crashes into homes in California
Four people have been killed and another two injured after a small plane crashed into two homes and caused a huge fire in southern California.
Riverside Fire chief Michael Moore said a husband, wife and three teenagers were returning to San Jose on Monday after a weekend cheerleading conference at Disneyland.
One of the teenagers, a girl, was thrown from the plane on impact and suffered only minor injuries.
She was able to talk to firefighters about what happened as she was taken to hospital.
An unconscious victim from one of the homes is in surgery.
Four bodies have been found in the wreckage, but firefighters have not established how many were from the plane and how many are from the homes.
They are searching for two possible victims in the wreckage.
The two homes were destroyed, and there was minor damage to some neighbouring homes.
Riverside Fire chief Michael Moore said a husband, wife and three teenagers were returning to San Jose on Monday after a weekend cheerleading conference at Disneyland.
One of the teenagers, a girl, was thrown from the plane on impact and suffered only minor injuries.
She was able to talk to firefighters about what happened as she was taken to hospital.
An unconscious victim from one of the homes is in surgery.
Four bodies have been found in the wreckage, but firefighters have not established how many were from the plane and how many are from the homes.
They are searching for two possible victims in the wreckage.
The two homes were destroyed, and there was minor damage to some neighbouring homes.
Monday, February 27, 2017
Two women to be charged over Kim Jong-Nam's murder
Two women will be charged with the murder of Kim Jong-Nam, who was assassinated at Kuala Lumpur's main airport.
Malaysia's attorney general Mohamed Apandi Ali said: "They will be charged in court under Section 302 (murder) of the penal code."
If they are found guilty, the women could face be hanged for the crime.
Indonesian Siti Aisyah, 25, reportedly told a senior diplomat Saturday she had been paid a small amount of cash for her role, and added she believed she was handling a liquid like "baby oil".
Vietnamese Doan Thi Huong, 28, told Hanoi officials she had been tricked into killing Mr Kim and thought she was taking part in a spoof for a comedy video.
A third suspect, 46-year-old North Korean man Ri Jong-Chol, was also arrested.
Seven North Korean suspects are being hunted by police, including four who fled the country on the day of the killing and are believed to be back in North Korea.
The killing on February 13 took place amid crowds of travellers at Kuala Lumpur's airport and appeared to be a well-planned hit.
Malaysian authorities said North Koreans put the deadly nerve agent VX on the hands of Aisyah and Huong, who then placed the toxin on Mr Kim's face.
He died on the way to hospital within about 20 minutes of the attack.
South Korean legislators said on Monday that the country's National Intelligence Service told them in a private briefing that four of the North Koreans identified as suspects are from the Ministry of State Security, the North's spy organisation.
Malaysia's attorney general Mohamed Apandi Ali said: "They will be charged in court under Section 302 (murder) of the penal code."
If they are found guilty, the women could face be hanged for the crime.
Indonesian Siti Aisyah, 25, reportedly told a senior diplomat Saturday she had been paid a small amount of cash for her role, and added she believed she was handling a liquid like "baby oil".
Vietnamese Doan Thi Huong, 28, told Hanoi officials she had been tricked into killing Mr Kim and thought she was taking part in a spoof for a comedy video.
A third suspect, 46-year-old North Korean man Ri Jong-Chol, was also arrested.
Seven North Korean suspects are being hunted by police, including four who fled the country on the day of the killing and are believed to be back in North Korea.
The killing on February 13 took place amid crowds of travellers at Kuala Lumpur's airport and appeared to be a well-planned hit.
Malaysian authorities said North Koreans put the deadly nerve agent VX on the hands of Aisyah and Huong, who then placed the toxin on Mr Kim's face.
He died on the way to hospital within about 20 minutes of the attack.
South Korean legislators said on Monday that the country's National Intelligence Service told them in a private briefing that four of the North Koreans identified as suspects are from the Ministry of State Security, the North's spy organisation.
Car involved in Tupac Shakur shooting goes on sale for £1.2m
A memorabilia dealer is selling the car which rapper Tupac Shakur was travelling in when he was shot and killed in a drive-by attack nearly 20 years ago.
The BMW 750iL, which once belonged to Death Row Records co-founder Suge Knight, has been listed with an asking price of $1.5m (£1.2m) in California.
Several photographs of the BMW have been uploaded by Moments In Time, but the company has not provided any details of the car's history since Shakur's death in September 1996.
However, it appears the car has been well-used, as there are more than 92,000 miles on the odometer.
Shakur, whose hits included Dear Mama and California Love, was travelling with Knight in Las Vegas when he was shot several times by a gunman in another car.
The rapper was taken to hospital and put on a life support machine, but died six days later at the age of 25. His murder was never resolved.
Several of Shakur's belongings have been listed by Moments In Time over recent months.
Last October, the company listed a pendant which the rapper was apparently wearing on the night he was shot in New York City - two years before his death.
The dented gold and diamond pendant's asking price was $125,000 (£100,000) - but TMZ reported that Shakur's estate was "strongly against" the listing and had threatened to file a lawsuit against anyone who purchased the jewellery.
It remains available to buy on the dealer's website.
The BMW 750iL, which once belonged to Death Row Records co-founder Suge Knight, has been listed with an asking price of $1.5m (£1.2m) in California.
Several photographs of the BMW have been uploaded by Moments In Time, but the company has not provided any details of the car's history since Shakur's death in September 1996.
However, it appears the car has been well-used, as there are more than 92,000 miles on the odometer.
Shakur, whose hits included Dear Mama and California Love, was travelling with Knight in Las Vegas when he was shot several times by a gunman in another car.
The rapper was taken to hospital and put on a life support machine, but died six days later at the age of 25. His murder was never resolved.
Several of Shakur's belongings have been listed by Moments In Time over recent months.
Last October, the company listed a pendant which the rapper was apparently wearing on the night he was shot in New York City - two years before his death.
The dented gold and diamond pendant's asking price was $125,000 (£100,000) - but TMZ reported that Shakur's estate was "strongly against" the listing and had threatened to file a lawsuit against anyone who purchased the jewellery.
It remains available to buy on the dealer's website.
TIME Person of the Year, Dies in Childbirth
The 2014 West African Ebola outbreak killed 11,310 people. Liberian nursing assistant Salome Karwah was not one of them. The disease that tore through her town in August of that year took her mother, her father, her brother, aunts, uncles, cousins and a niece. But by some miracle it left Karwah, her sister Josephine Manley and her fiancé James Harris still alive.
But just because Karwah escaped Ebola, it didn’t mean she was secure against the failures of Liberia’s broken medical system. She died on Feb. 21, 2017, from complications in childbirth and the lingering social stigma faced by many of Ebola’s survivors.
Karwah used to joke that survivors had “super powers” — because after overcoming the disease they were forever immune from it. Like any superhero, she often quipped, it was her moral duty to use those powers for the betterment of humankind. So as soon as she recovered, she returned to the hospital where she had been treated — the Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) Ebola treatment unit just outside of the capital, Monrovia — to help other patients. Not only did she understand what they were going through, she was one of the rare people who could comfort the sick with hands-on touch. She could spoon-feed elderly sufferers, and rock feverish babies to sleep.
When I met Karwah, in November 2014, she, her fiancée, and her sister were already planning to re-open the family medical clinic that had been forced to close when her father, the local doctor, succumbed to Ebola. She envisioned a kind of super-clinic, whose survivor nurses would able to go where other medical personnel feared to tread because of their immunity. “I can do things that other people can’t," she said then. "If an Ebola patient is in his house, and his immediate relative cannot go to him, I can go to him. I can take [care of] him.”
It was her determination to help Ebola patients when most of the world fled in fear that put her among the Ebola Fighters who were named TIME Magazine’s Person of the Year in 2014.
At the time, Karwah seemed invincible. When the outbreak in Liberia ended, and people could have a party without fear of catching the virus, she finally married her fiancé, changed her name to Salome Harris, and had her third child. She picked the name Destiny. Then she got pregnant again. On Feb. 17 she delivered a healthy boy, Solomon, by cesarian section. She was discharged from hospital three days later.
But just because Karwah escaped Ebola, it didn’t mean she was secure against the failures of Liberia’s broken medical system. She died on Feb. 21, 2017, from complications in childbirth and the lingering social stigma faced by many of Ebola’s survivors.
Karwah used to joke that survivors had “super powers” — because after overcoming the disease they were forever immune from it. Like any superhero, she often quipped, it was her moral duty to use those powers for the betterment of humankind. So as soon as she recovered, she returned to the hospital where she had been treated — the Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) Ebola treatment unit just outside of the capital, Monrovia — to help other patients. Not only did she understand what they were going through, she was one of the rare people who could comfort the sick with hands-on touch. She could spoon-feed elderly sufferers, and rock feverish babies to sleep.
When I met Karwah, in November 2014, she, her fiancée, and her sister were already planning to re-open the family medical clinic that had been forced to close when her father, the local doctor, succumbed to Ebola. She envisioned a kind of super-clinic, whose survivor nurses would able to go where other medical personnel feared to tread because of their immunity. “I can do things that other people can’t," she said then. "If an Ebola patient is in his house, and his immediate relative cannot go to him, I can go to him. I can take [care of] him.”
It was her determination to help Ebola patients when most of the world fled in fear that put her among the Ebola Fighters who were named TIME Magazine’s Person of the Year in 2014.
At the time, Karwah seemed invincible. When the outbreak in Liberia ended, and people could have a party without fear of catching the virus, she finally married her fiancé, changed her name to Salome Harris, and had her third child. She picked the name Destiny. Then she got pregnant again. On Feb. 17 she delivered a healthy boy, Solomon, by cesarian section. She was discharged from hospital three days later.
Kim Jong-nam death: Four N Korean suspects 'are spies'
Four suspects in the killing of Kim Jong-nam, the estranged half-brother of North Korean ruler Kim Jong-un, are North Korean spies, South Korea's intelligence service told members of parliament in Seoul.
Kim Jong-nam died February 13 at Kuala Lumpur's airport in what Malaysian police say was a well-planned hit by a Vietnamese womanand an Indonesian woman who separately wiped a liquid onto Kim's face.
South Korean lawmakers cited the National Intelligence Service as telling them in a private briefing on Monday that four of the North Koreans identified as suspects by Malaysian police investigating the death are from the Ministry of State Security, the North's spy agency.
The NIS was quoted as saying that two other suspects are affiliated with Pyongyang's Foreign Ministry, according to Lee Cheol-woo, one of the politicians who attended the briefing.
Another legislator, Kim Byeong-ki cited the NIS as saying Kim Jong-un directed a "state-organised terror" to kill his brother.
The politicians did not say how the NIS got the information and if it elaborated on what specific roles these North Korean suspects performed.
The NIS has a mixed record on reporting developments in the secretive North. The agency said it cannot confirm its reported assessment on Kim Jong-nam's death.
Malaysia has not directly accused North Korea of having masterminded the Kim Jong-nam killing but is pursuing several North Korean suspects, including a diplomat at the North Korean Embassy in Kuala Lumpur.
Police last week identified the substance as the banned chemical weapon VX nerve agent, and Malaysia's health minister said on Sunday the dose was so high it caused "very serious paralysis" and killed him within 20 minutes.
Malaysian officials have said four North Korean men provided the two women with the VX agent, then fled Malaysia the same day.
It was unclear if those four were the four North Korean spies cited by South Korea's intelligence agency.
North Korea has repeatedly criticised Malaysia's investigation and has not acknowledged the victim's identity.
Kim Jong-nam died February 13 at Kuala Lumpur's airport in what Malaysian police say was a well-planned hit by a Vietnamese womanand an Indonesian woman who separately wiped a liquid onto Kim's face.
South Korean lawmakers cited the National Intelligence Service as telling them in a private briefing on Monday that four of the North Koreans identified as suspects by Malaysian police investigating the death are from the Ministry of State Security, the North's spy agency.
The NIS was quoted as saying that two other suspects are affiliated with Pyongyang's Foreign Ministry, according to Lee Cheol-woo, one of the politicians who attended the briefing.
Another legislator, Kim Byeong-ki cited the NIS as saying Kim Jong-un directed a "state-organised terror" to kill his brother.
The politicians did not say how the NIS got the information and if it elaborated on what specific roles these North Korean suspects performed.
The NIS has a mixed record on reporting developments in the secretive North. The agency said it cannot confirm its reported assessment on Kim Jong-nam's death.
Malaysia has not directly accused North Korea of having masterminded the Kim Jong-nam killing but is pursuing several North Korean suspects, including a diplomat at the North Korean Embassy in Kuala Lumpur.
Police last week identified the substance as the banned chemical weapon VX nerve agent, and Malaysia's health minister said on Sunday the dose was so high it caused "very serious paralysis" and killed him within 20 minutes.
Malaysian officials have said four North Korean men provided the two women with the VX agent, then fled Malaysia the same day.
It was unclear if those four were the four North Korean spies cited by South Korea's intelligence agency.
North Korea has repeatedly criticised Malaysia's investigation and has not acknowledged the victim's identity.
Sony unveils 4K and super slow motion Xperia XZ Premium smartphone
Sony has unveiled the world’s first smartphone to be equipped with a 4K definition high dynamic range screen – technologies which until now have been limited to premium televisions.
The inclusion of ultra-high definition and colour contrast on Sony's Xperia XZ Premium will allow users to download and watch movies and TV in 4K directly on the device's 5.5-inch screen.
The water-resistant device also packs an improved camera which is capable of shooting slow motion video at 960 frames per second - which Sony says is four times slower than any other smartphone.
It is set to go on sale in the spring - but some tech experts say they are reserving judgement on the device until they know how much it will cost.
TechRadar news website's early verdict read: "A strong phone from Sony with excellent innovation in the screen.
"However, it all depends on how much this monster of a phone will cost, and whether the streamed 4K footage actually looks good on here at all."
Announcing the Xperia XZ Premium at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Sony director Hideyuki Furumi said: "We've continued to evolve and transform our smartphone portfolio, with an unwavering focus on delivering the most advanced technology in elegantly designed products.
"Whether it's a memory-stacked camera system capable of super slow motion capture or the world's first 4K HDR smartphone display, we're delivering experiences that connect with users in emotional and meaningful ways like never before."
As well as announcing the Xperia XZ Premium, Sony unveiled two mid-range smartphones.
The Xperia XA1 and larger screen XA1 Ultra will both come with 23 megapixel rear cameras and high-end 16 megapixel front-facing cameras.
The tech giant also revealed an interactive projector, Xperia Touch, which can turn any flat horizontal or vertical surface into a HD touchscreen for playing games or watching movies.
The device, which can connect with Android smartphones and tablets, is priced at €1,499 (£1,278) and will go on sale this spring.
The inclusion of ultra-high definition and colour contrast on Sony's Xperia XZ Premium will allow users to download and watch movies and TV in 4K directly on the device's 5.5-inch screen.
The water-resistant device also packs an improved camera which is capable of shooting slow motion video at 960 frames per second - which Sony says is four times slower than any other smartphone.
It is set to go on sale in the spring - but some tech experts say they are reserving judgement on the device until they know how much it will cost.
TechRadar news website's early verdict read: "A strong phone from Sony with excellent innovation in the screen.
"However, it all depends on how much this monster of a phone will cost, and whether the streamed 4K footage actually looks good on here at all."
Announcing the Xperia XZ Premium at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Sony director Hideyuki Furumi said: "We've continued to evolve and transform our smartphone portfolio, with an unwavering focus on delivering the most advanced technology in elegantly designed products.
"Whether it's a memory-stacked camera system capable of super slow motion capture or the world's first 4K HDR smartphone display, we're delivering experiences that connect with users in emotional and meaningful ways like never before."
As well as announcing the Xperia XZ Premium, Sony unveiled two mid-range smartphones.
The Xperia XA1 and larger screen XA1 Ultra will both come with 23 megapixel rear cameras and high-end 16 megapixel front-facing cameras.
The tech giant also revealed an interactive projector, Xperia Touch, which can turn any flat horizontal or vertical surface into a HD touchscreen for playing games or watching movies.
The device, which can connect with Android smartphones and tablets, is priced at €1,499 (£1,278) and will go on sale this spring.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)